Little Things
by Noodleslove
Summary: A little look into a normal day for Naruto and Sasuke, pre-timeskip. Naruto gets injured and Sasuke cooks for him. Contains slight tiny mentions of NaruSasu.


This fic is just a little exploration into Sasuke and Naruto's relationship pre-timeskip. They've both stated in canon that they considered the other person their closest friend, but we don't really get to see those moments of them just being together and hanging out. So I wrote one instead!

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Naruto looked to his left and right awkwardly. Pointedly not looking down. "Hey, um, thanks Sasuke" he finally said, after long moments of silence.

Sasuke's hand stilled on Naruto's knee. Unable to resist a chance to lecture Naruto for his inadequacies he chided, "You shouldn't be so reckless. There won't always be someone around on missions to patch you up." He looked up and met Naruto's eyes, "and sometimes there won't even be time."

He went back to work on the wound he was cleaning. There was a large gash in Naruto's knee complete with bits of rock, dirt and grass ground in. The addition of blood that was forcing its way through the debris created quite a nasty picture. Naruto winced as Sasuke sprayed disinfectant on it and pressed a hot towel directly into the wound. "Damn- warn me before you do that, won't you?" he grumbled.

Sasuke simply shot him a look, his dark eyes narrowed, as he attempted to remove the earth from the wound. "Don't whine."

"Well anyway," Naruto said, in an effort to distract himself from the stinging pain. "I don't have to worry about not having anyone around to fix me up, since no one ever really helped me before." Sasuke stopped dabbing the cut to look up at Naruto again, but the look in his eyes was less sharp this time. "So I guess I got pretty good at doing it myself, you know?" Naruto finished, a grin on his face and his arms crossed behind his head. He was somewhat proud of his ability and somewhat embarrassed at the admission of having no one. It was a little difficult to talk about not having a family, even if he had only alluded to it.

Sasuke place a small strip of soft cotton directly over the wound. "Hold this here for me". Naruto complied as Sasuke rummaged through his first aid pouch looking for the linen wrap to finish dressing the wound. "I didn't have anyone either, so I had to learn to do it myself." Sasuke said quietly, shrugging his shoulders in an attempt at nonchalance. Naruto had the feeling that Sasuke was just trying to look busy, as he could plainly see the roll of linen sitting on the floor next to Sasuke's leg.

"I guess it's nice to have someone patch me up for a change," Naruto said, reaching down from his spot on Sasuke's bed to grab the roll of cloth and place it in Sasuke's hand. Sasuke scoffed, but Naruto was too interested in his surroundings to notice as he glanced around at the bare walls. It was a rare chance to see Sasuke's house since he rarely -scratch that- never invited anyone, well, at least never invited _Naruto_ over. Naruto's impression: it was… lonely. No pictures on the walls, no decorations. A shelf with some scrolls and some books with difficult kanji on the spines. A chair. A bed with plain dark linens and a side table with an unrolled scroll on top. Naruto had expected Sasuke's room to look tidy, but he didn't expect it to not look like… a home.

Sasuke must have noticed blue eyes wandering. He pulled roughly at the bandage he'd begun to place over Naruto's knee and the pain snapped Naruto's gaze back to the spiky black hair in front of him. "I told you to hold this. I'm going to start wrapping it now."

Naruto scowled at the tone of voice Sasuke addressed him with, but he let it slide. He placed his fingers over Sasuke's to readjust the cotton gauze that had slipped out of place and noticed how warm his hands were. He watched Sasuke gently wrap the linen around his knee, this time taking care not to cause any additional hurt; his fingertips brushing faintly against Naruto's skin. Now lightly holding Naruto's calf and slowly straightening his leg to allow him to wrap it properly. When those hands were so often balled in anger or clenched in frustration it seemed strange to see how gentle they could be.

Naruto realized that it was sometimes easy to forget that Sasuke was a regular human with blood pumping through his veins.

"Finished." Sasuke said as he secured the end of the bandage with a pin. He uncrossed his legs and got up off the floor. He sat down on his bed next to Naruto, the springs dipping beneath his weight. "You should take it easy for a few hours to give it a chance to close up and stop bleeding."

Naruto wrinkled his nose and screwed his eyes shut. "In a couple hours it'll be completely healed anyway," he said flippantly as though this was completely natural.

"Convenient." Sasuke raised an eyebrow and glanced at the bandaged wound thoughtfully.

"Yup!" Naruto jumped up off the bed suddenly and then immediately winced in pain. "I forgot about it." He grinned sheepishly at Sasuke's incredulous expression, who didn't have the willpower within him to contain an exaggerated eye roll.

"How could you instantly forget after I just spent 15 minutes dressing it, plus all the time it took to drag you back here in the first place?"

Sasuke and Naruto had been sparring when he was injured, and Naruto was unable to walk on his own. With no medical supplies handy -Sakura and Kakashi usually took care of that stuff- Sasuke insisted they go to his house to bandage the wound. Naruto reasoned that Sasuke's house _was_ much closer to the training grounds than Naruto's apartment building. Even a dumb bastard like Sasuke had to be reasonable once in awhile. So not for the first time, Naruto had found himself leaning on Sasuke for support as he was practically dragged back to Sasuke's house.

"Sorry, sorry!" Naruto bowed his head in slightly sarcastic apology. "I could have taken care of it myself though" he added.

"Hm?" Sasuke looked at Naruto with an all-too-familiar smirk on his face. "And who was it again, who said how nice it was to have someone play doctor to them?" he said, almost playfully.

Naruto had the grace to at least look embarrassed. "Well, thanks for that. I think I can still manage to get myself home though, now that it's wrapped." He tapped his foot down gingerly, to test how much pressure he could apply to his knee before moving himself toward the doorway.

"Oi, I meant it when I said you should wait for it to close up." Sasuke admonished Naruto, catching him off guard and stopping him in his tracks.

"Oh." he stated obtusely. Naruto looked a little lost. "What should I do?" He didn't want to make any assumptions about what he ought to do, especially since this was an entirely new and unexpected situation.

Sasuke rolled his eyes again, making Naruto bristle slightly, but what he said next had a somewhat mollifying effect on him.

"Stay here for a couple hours. I'll check it again to make sure it's started to close up a bit. Then at least if you walk on it you won't open the wound, even if it's a bit sore." Naruto screwed his eyes up in thought, his arms crossed in front of his chest. He'd always seen Sasuke as a rival, but now maybe he was starting to see him as more than that. After all, he didn't know many people who would take the time to help him out, if it wasn't stated directly in their job description.

Sasuke however, unable to see what was happening in Naruto's mind, was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable. "What is it?" he said, his posture looking somewhat defensive.

Naruto just grinned. "Got any ramen? I'm starved." He patted his stomach, "a workout like that builds an appetite, you know?"

Sasuke derided him. "As if I'd have any ramen here. I don't have the palette of a five year old." He got off the bed and headed toward the doorway where Naruto was still standing.

Naruto would have felt the need to defend his precious, all-important food of choice, had it not been for the quirk of Sasuke's lips that threatened to turn into a smile. So he kept his mouth shut instead.

"The kitchen is down the hallway." Sasuke said, pointing down a long corridor. "Think you can make it that far?" Even in companionable moments, they couldn't seem to help but bicker.

"Of course I can, Bastard. I could still run laps around you if I wanted," he looked a little ruffled. But when Sasuke clapped him on the shoulder and walked through the bedroom door, nodding in the direction of the kitchen, Naruto smiled. "So what are you gonna cook? I hope you're a better chef than a ninja, or I'm in trouble."

Sasuke just huffed. "My mother taught me some recipes before… well, just be grateful you get to eat her cooking, dumbass."

He followed At Sasuke's pace, despite the pain shocking up his leg and into his hip. He'd be damned if he let on how much it hurt though. They had to travel down a hallway and around the corner to leave Sasuke's quarters and enter the half of the house which, even after all this time remained mostly in disuse.

As they entered the kitchen Naruto was immediately struck by it. The gleaming polish of the wooden table and chairs. The row of shiny copper pots hanging from a rack in the ceiling. The window over the sink with the yellow laced curtains that let the evening sun and air in. Naruto thought it was one of the nicest rooms he'd ever been in. This is what Naruto pictured when he tried to imagine how a proper home might look.

He must have been wearing an expression of something like awe. Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at him.

"What? It's just a kitchen."

"Just a kitchen?" He pulled a heavy wooden chair out from the table and sat down, making himself comfortable, his injured leg stretched out. "Maybe you should drop by my place again sometime and I'll show you 'just a kitchen'" since he himself made do with only kettle, a stove, a sink and fridge.

Sasuke shrugged. He didn't know anything else but this place. He spent a lot of his childhood here. He supposed for someone in a situation like Naruto it would seem a little different. He pulled a pot off the rack, the faint sound of the remaining pots clinking together gently almost like wind chimes. Naruto watched him work methodically. Pulling something from the fridge, setting the pot on the stove, getting a box out of the cupboard with a picture of some shrimp on it.

Naruto screwed up his face. Frankly, he had no idea what Sasuke was making. For Naruto, one kettle of water and a cup full of ingredients was all he needed. This, what Sasuke was doing, it looked like hard work. Naruto rested his head in his arms as he watched Sasuke work. Long minutes that felt like hours passed in silence. It had probably only been ten or so, but Naruto didn't do well with silence.

"Sasuke?" Sasuke didn't turn around, too busy dumping noodles in one pot and soy in another, but made a vague sound like "hn?" to acknowledge he'd heard Naruto. "What are you making? It looks difficult."

This time Sasuke did turn around, a spoon in his hand as he tasted the sauce he was preparing. 'Shrimp tempura, cold udon salad, and this is just a dashi sauce for the shrimp.' Sasuke placed a deep pan onto the stove top and poured oil into it. He looked over his work meticulously, wiped down the counters and stacked his prep dishes in the sink.

Naruto felt his love of ramen intensify. Looking at all this work, all this mess, all the trouble… "Is it really all worth it, Sasuke?"

"Hn? Is what worth it?" Sasuke approached him. He was carrying a spoon with the same liquid he'd been tasting earlier. From here, Naruto could see how dark it was, and how good it smelled. His stomach growled. Naruto lifted his head up.

"Here." Sasuke held the spoon up to his face. Naruto suddenly felt very self-conscious as he opened his mouth to taste the broth. Sasuke had fed him in the past; when he'd been tied up to a log in the training grounds. But that had felt different somehow. He'd been tied to a log. Naruto wasn't tied to a log right now; he could use his hands perfectly fine. It was his knee he'd hurt, not his hands. Why didn't Sasuke just give him a spoon? And why the hell did it even matter? Naruto fought to urge to ruffle his hands through his hair like he usually did when he had to think too hard about something, and realized he must have been staring down the spoon like he was simpleminded. So he closed his eyes, closed his mouth around the spoon and tasted. And just like that the nervous feeling he'd been having melted away. This, whatever it was Sasuke had made, it was amazing.

Naruto's eyes shot open and all pretence of awkwardness was gone as he bounced in his seat. "Wow, Sasuke, that's incredible. If they made a cup ramen that tasted like that I'd eat it every day!"

Sasuke looked mildly affected by the compliment, the slightest hint of colour rising in his face. He brushed it aside and scoffed to cover his embarrassment. "This? This is nothing, I could make this in my sleep."

He turned away and walked back to the stove to attend to the oil that had been heating in the pan. Naruto stood up gingerly and approached Sasuke from behind. "Teach me too!" He shouted from right behind Sasuke.

Sasuke jumped a little. "Dammit, don't startle someone when they're cooking over a hot stove, idiot".

"Whatever, show me what you're doing!" After tasting the results of Sasuke's hard work, even if he'd never try to cook it himself, he was suddenly very interested in what was happening. "This was one of your mother's recipes, you said?"

Sasuke craned his neck to look over his shoulder at Naruto. He opened his mouth as though to speak but simply nodded instead. He picked up the tempura-coated pieces of shrimp with his cooking chopsticks and slowly lowered them into the oil.

Naruto's eyes widened at the sudden sound of spattering and spluttering the oil made and he took a quick step back. "Is it supposed to do that?"

Sasuke wrinkled his nose and furrowed his brow in Naruto's direction. "How have you managed to keep yourself alive if you can't even cook?"

Naruto grinned, his hands tossed carelessly behind his head. "Easy! Cup ramen and milk for breakfast, and when I'm lucky, Iruka-sensei treats me to dinner at Ichiraku!"

Sasuke stirred the shrimp gently, careful to avoid hot splashes of oil. "That's exactly what I'm talking about, you know."

"What's exactly what you're talking about?" Naruto inquired, his eyes scrunched up in question. Sasuke deigned not to bother clarifying and continued to stir.

Naruto made a quick grab for the chopsticks Sasuke was holding. He was getting restless and he wanted to do something too. But Sasuke was Sasuke, and thanks to his "superior Uchiha reflexes" he moved out of Naruto's reach and turned around to glare at him. "First lesson of cooking" he chided, "don't screw around near hot oil. Nothing will be able to help you when half of your face melts off because you were too stupid to stand still for five minutes."

Naruto frowned.

"Secondly" Sasuke added, taking a quick glance at the spots of red that had appeared on Naruto's bandage, "I'm going to run out of gauze if you keep opening your gash up." He pointed at the chair with his chopsticks. "Go sit down."

Naruto pulled an expression that could only be described as a pout. His cheeks puffed up indignantly and his mouth tightened into a straight line. "I just wanted to help! Teach me!"

Sasuke's gaze softened almost imperceptibly. "I've already finished everything anyway. There's nothing for you to help with, so go sit down. I'll show you how to cook next time."

Naruto's eyes widened. Next time?

Sasuke didn't seem to realize he'd said something strange. But was he really inviting Naruto to come again? To teach him how to make things that could almost put ramen to shame? He didn't want to do anything to make Sasuke change his mind -he had learned though experience that Uchihas were moody- so for once he listened obediently and took his place at the table.

It wasn't long before Sasuke arranged the dishes in front of Naruto. The food looked like nothing Naruto had eaten before. But before he could even _really_ register what was set on the dishes in front of him, he was drawn to the plates themselves. Painted on them was a border of tiny, smiling, black cat faces with little white whiskers. Naruto couldn't imagine Sasuke had picked these out himself. Sasuke immediately noticed where Naruto's bright eyes were lingering and quickly said, "my mother liked cats." He had clearly foreseen some kind of snide comment in his future.

Naruto didn't push it, but honestly, this was something unexpected. Cool and stoic Sasuke eating off kitty plates. He managed to turn his little laugh into a passable cough, and Sasuke only coloured slightly. He turned away to retrieve his own dishes and when he returned he sat on Naruto's left side.

Naruto was pretty new to this. He couldn't remember a time he'd ever eaten food at someone's house. Food that someone had cooked just for him. He wasn't one much for caring about courtesies or manners but somehow this felt a little different. He nervously crossed his ankles under his chair. Then he squirmed a little. Was he just supposed to eat? Did he have to say something first?

Sasuke cleared his throat and Naruto jumped a little. How long had he been sitting there staring at his plate? Sasuke gave him a little nod of what Naruto guessed was encouragement. Well, I guess that was it then, "Thanks for the food!"

It. Was. Delicious. More than anything he supposed; more than Sasuke's actual skill with cooking, or what the actual food was; what was really incredible was that this was a real home-cooked meal. It was something he'd heard other students talk about fondly at the academy. Something he'd seen recipes for in magazines in waiting rooms. Naruto had never had one until Sasuke made this just for him.

His enthusiasm must have shown on his face, or perhaps in the inhuman sounds he was making as he was devouring it because Sasuke hadn't taken a bite. He just sat there watching Naruto eat. Naruto could feel Sasuke's dark eyes on him. Couldn't feel any movement or hear the sound of chopsticks beside him. But when Naruto finally tore his face away from his plate to look next to him, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

Sasuke. Smiling. A real, genuine, happy-looking smile. Aimed at Naruto. It was only there for a moment; when he realized Naruto was looking at him the usual cool façade was instantly back in place. But Naruto had seen it, he wouldn't forget it, and his blue eyes lit up a little. "Aren't you going to eat? Your mum's food is delicious!" Maybe it was nice for Sasuke to have someone to eat with too. After all, if Naruto often felt lonely in his little apartment, he found it difficult to imagine how lonely it must be in a big empty house full of bad memories.

Sasuke looked a little taken aback, and a little worry line crossed his brow. Naruto was afraid he'd said something wrong but then Sasuke let out a little sigh instead, "I'm sure she'd be happy to hear you say that."

They ate in companionable silence, the only sounds coming from the clink of plates and glasses, and the strange snuffling sounds of Naruto attempting to eat and breathe all at once. When he had finished every last bit he leaned back in his chair and placed his chopsticks down in a way he hoped was neat. "Do you cook a lot, Sasuke? That was really good."

Sasuke must have been taken by surprise by the question, or perhaps the compliment, because he answered without skipping a beat. "Not really, there's not a lot of point cooking things like this for just myself. I usually eat simple things."

They sat in silence again. Naruto guessed that since they spent most of their time arguing, he wasn't really sure how to talk normally with Sasuke. An argument was a lot like a regular conversation for them. Well, what kind of conversations did Naruto have with anyone, really? Not a lot of people gave him the time of day, so he'd never had a chance to practise small talk.

Perhaps his thoughts were written on his face because Sasuke broke the silence; not for the first time that evening. "Let me just clear away these dishes and I'll check your bandage for you one more time."

While Sasuke stacked the dishes neatly and walked them to the kitchen sink, Naruto unpinned his bandage and unrolled it from his leg himself. Aside from some dried blood, and the itch of knitting skin, his leg seemed to be fine. He somehow felt a little disappointed. Even if he didn't know the right things to say, or the right way to act, he liked being here with Sasuke. Not fighting, or competing. Just being… together. Almost like a family he guessed, if he was willing to let himself get a little carried away.

He stood up and bent his knee, stretching it out, and then put his full weight on it. It was fine. Having a fox demon inside him was generally pretty awful, but at least there were a few good side effects.

Sasuke, having finished rinsing and neurotically stacking the dishes neatly in the sink turned around to see Naruto bouncing on the balls of his feet. "All better then?" He motioned for Naruto to sit again. He complied, and Sasuke gently took his knee and bent it back and forth, and ran his finger gently, almost curiously, against the tissue that was turning into a faint scar. Naruto suppressed a little shiver. Where that reaction came from, he wasn't sure. And he was much too full and content for introspection right now.

"I told you it would heal fast!" Naruto's disappointment at going home was almost turning itself into relief as he thought about Sasuke gently wrapping his knee, feeding him from a spoon and tracing the scar softly with his finger. Naruto felt his face getting a little warm so he jumped up from the chair and backed up a couple steps toward the kitchen doorway. Maybe he needed to think about it a little bit after all. "So I think I'm good to get home on my own now."

"Hn. Well, even if you heal quickly, try not to hurt yourself stupidly in the future."

At this point in a normal day Naruto would take the bait, and start bickering back, but something in Sasuke's tone made it clear he wasn't trying to start a fight. He was just being… nice. In his messed up Sasuke way. And somehow that made Naruto feel a little weird too.

But ever the master of putting on a good front, Naruto grinned instead. "Thanks for patching me up bastard! And thanks for dinner."

Sasuke nodded.

"And don't think I've forgotten about you teaching me next time!"

"Sure, sure" He sounded dismissive, but Naruto could see past his tone of voice and into the way Sasuke's dark eyes looked a little brighter, and the crease between his eyebrows lightened.

Naruto gave a little wave and walked out the doorway a few paces, stopped and turned around. "So um, Bastard?" He called back loudly toward the kitchen. "How do I get out of here again?"

All Naruto could hear was the sigh, and the footsteps approaching from behind to lead him to the front door. It was a shame that he didn't get to see the smile too.


End file.
